With only three films, Um Tae-hwa has made a name for herself in the unstoppable cinematography of South Korea, a country whose love affair with the Sitges Festival goes back a long way. If the first days of the contest were shaken by the screening of Sleep, by Jason Yu, and later Smugglers, by Ryoo Seung-wan and The Childe, by Park Hoon-jung, yesterday the expectation was maximum with Concrete Utopia, drama of catastrophes that participates in the Orbit section and will represent South Korea in the race for the Oscar for best international film.
In it, Um Tae-hwa takes us to a Seoul devastated by an earthquake that has only left one building standing. Residents barricade themselves in to prevent the rest of the people from outside, who gather in search of shelter and food. It’s cold and they ask for help, but only receive selfishness in response. It is the fight for survival.
“When there is fear within a group, stability and security are sought. In the film, the residents organize themselves internally, they choose a delegate who acts as a guide and it could be said that they are selfish because they reject anyone who is not a resident of the building. But I don’t want to say that this human characteristic is bad, it’s just that people are like that. And there is no solution for it, I just ask the question for people to reflect. When we find ourselves in an extreme situation, we only see the short term, and that is why most of the decisions made are wrong,” this 42-year-old director who worked as assistant director for Park Chan-wook told La Vanguardia ( Old boy, Decision to leave ).
The story is an adaptation of the second part of the popular webtoon (digital comic) Pleasant Bullying, by Kim Soong-nyung, with a very real component, that of some apartments that indicate the social class of each family that lives in them. “In Korea it is very difficult to own a house and those who do not have one are always worried and insecure. “It is a very sad panorama,” he points out. Before arriving in Sitges, the film premiered at the Toronto festival and has had a spectacular box office in South Korea. “I didn’t expect this success but I knew that the public wanted something different from the classic formulas,” says the director and screenwriter.
Some media have already dubbed it the new Parasites due to its mix of genres and that evident load of social criticism about the class struggle. Although Um Tae-hwa replaces black humor with large doses of violence, which explodes even among the residents themselves, without leaving aside the possibility of a silver lining. In fact, one of the protagonists, Park Seo-joon, appeared in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film. “For me it is an honor because I belong to a generation that has grown up watching films by these great masters,” explains the director, who hopes “to be able to continually create with varied genres and mixing reality with surreal elements with the aim of making the public think.” ”.
And also from Korea comes one of the favorites to win the award for best film in the official Sitges section, through which 31 works have passed. This is the aforementioned Sleep, which was already seen in Cannes and keeps the viewer in suspense with an initially very domestic story. A young man has sleeping problems that lead to sleepwalking. At night, he scratches himself mercilessly, gets up and raids the refrigerator, stuffs himself with raw meat and fish… One day he kills his little dog. His wife is pregnant and when her daughter is born, he fears for the girl’s life.
Jung Yu-mi, who plays the mother who cannot sleep for fear of her sleepwalking husband, is one of the favorites to be crowned best actress. She though she has competition. Ramesha Nawal is a young medical student who sees her life fall apart because of the death of her grandfather and the death of the boy she was starting to date in In Flames, a Pakistani film by Zarrar Kahn and one of the surprises of the contest. who will announce his record this Saturday.
Ernesto Alterio has convinced the public with his role as an unscrupulous businessman in Moscas by Aritz Moreno. And Víctor Clavijo has garnered applause for playing the guard of a Sevillian farmhouse who suffers emotional and physical deterioration in The Wait.
Other films that aim high are When Evil Stalks, by Argentine Demián Rugna; Late night whit the devil, by brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes; The Animal Kingdom, by Frenchman Thomas Cailley, and Weston Razooli’s debut feature, Riddle of Fire, one of the last minute sensations of the Sitges festival.
